The Essence of Islam – Volume IV — Page 26
26. Essence of Islam-IV thought that if a corpulent person, who is also a wrestler, had to starve along with me, he would die before I could feel any acute need for food. This experience taught me that one can progress stage by stage in starving oneself and that until one's body becomes accustomed to such privations a comfortloving person is not fit to accomplish stages of spiritual progress. But I would not advise everyone to embark upon such a discipline, nor did I do so of my own accord. I have known many ignorant dervishes who adopted a course of hard physical discipline and in the end lost their sanity and spent the rest of their lives in madness or became afflicted with various diseases such as tuberculosis, etc. . Not all humans possess similar mental faculties. . Those whose faculties are naturally weak cannot bear any physical discipline. Very soon, they are afflicted with some dangerous disease. It is better that one should not subject oneself to a rigorous physical discipline on one's own. Rather one should adopt the faith of simple people. Of course, if one receives a revelation from God and it is not opposed to the magnificent Shariah of Islam, it must be carried out. . However, the foolish fakirs of today teach disciplines which do not result in any good. One should stay away from them. . Keep in mind that it was on the basis of a clear vision from God Almighty that I carried out rigorous physical discipline for eight or nine months and